


i'm dreaming, you're out in the blue

by albypotter



Category: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: M/M, mermaid au, minimal angst (for once)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-12-20 19:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21062078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albypotter/pseuds/albypotter
Summary: Sometimes it feels like the sea is calling to him, no matter how far away he is, so making a friend who lives in the water is more magical than Scorpius could have ever imagined.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i am so excited about this fic!! i've been thinking about mermaids for months and i love this concept so so much, i hope its not too niche whoops
> 
> title is from on the wing by owl city

Sometimes, it feels like the sea is calling to him, no matter how far away he is. Malfoy Manor is nice in its own way, but it's dark and looming and it was built for a whole family, and it's much too big for just the three of them. He knows they had to move back for his father's work, but Scorpius dreams of his mother's house on the coast in Gdynia where he grew up, and he longs for the time he gets to spend there. They live in England, but going back to Poland at the start of each summer feels like coming home.

They arrive by Portkey early in the morning, just as the sun is rising, and all Scorpius wants to do is take his book and run out to the beach, to see the sea again for the first time since last year. His parents leave to go grocery shopping, with a _don't forget, you need to unpack_ from his father and a kind smile from his mother, and he pulls his current book out from his overstuffed trunk and heads out the back. There's a narrow, winding, dusty track that leads from their back door down to the sand, with wild overgrown grasses stretching out across the cliffs as far as he can see. Scorpius knows he should go slow, because he's tumbled down the steeper stretches more times than he can remember in his youth, but this time he just can't wait. When the vast expanse of dark water comes into view, it sends a chill down his spine, despite the sunlight warming his skin. _This is where he's supposed to be._

He kicks his shoes off before he reaches the sand, leaves them along with his book on the start of the wooden pier that extends out a little way into the sea. The water is icy against his skin, not yet warmed by the morning sun, but the sand between his toes and the seaweed that brushes up against his ankles is welcome and wonderful. The hems of his trousers are soaked by the tiny waves that lap up against the shore, but he doesn't mind. This is where he's supposed to be, after all. Scorpius just stands in the water for a little while, relishing in the feeling of being home at last. He considers going back up to the house to get a towel and his trunks so that he can swim, but decides against it. He goes to collect his book, instead, and makes his way out to the end of the pier to sit and read, letting his feet dangle in the water. 

He's invested in the story - a book he found in a Muggle shop, about a girl who can pause time with her mind. The way Muggles write about magic is strange, and sometimes it's jarring how _wrong_ they are about certain things, but it's fascinating all the same. He's so invested in the story that he doesn't notice at first that there's a shape in the water, until something cold and slippery brushes against his leg. He yelps, drawing his feet back up out of the sea and onto the safe wooden surface of the pier before he realises what the thing is. If he looks straight down, he can make out a shadow under the water. A shadow in the shape of a person. It swims up and breaks the surface, and Scorpius is looking at the face of a boy. 

Scorpius is no stranger to pointed features, but where his ears are rounded, this boy has sharp, elfin tips. His other features have an eerie, shadowed quality to them too, and his skin is tinged blue-green, almost as though it's translucent. 

"Hello," Scorpius says. Odd as this boy may be, appearing out of the sea, he mustn't forget his manners. The boy doesn't reply, though, just watches him through large dark eyes. He seems to be treading water without any effort, without even using his arms, just bobbing up and down in the waves casual as anything. Scorpius frowns, concentrating. It takes him a moment, but a distant memory of a Care Of Magical Creatures lesson comes to him, and he gasps softly. 

"Are you a mermaid?" 

The boy nods, sharp features blank, and he still doesn't speak. Scorpius racks his brain for more information on the Merpeople of the Black Lake. Of course, this is saltwater instead of fresh water, so everything he knows could be wrong, but he has to try. 

_A sapient species, which would qualify for full Being status if they had not as a race rejected the classification. Of the two sub-categories, Mermaids live in saltwater, and Merpeople in fresh water. The Merpeople are vicious creatures, and can be dangerous when they sense a threat. They have a thriving culture and live in highly organised communities. Merpeople have a developed language, and are fond of music, however they cannot speak above water._

Scorpius looks back at the boy - the _mermaid_ \- who's still watching him with interest. 

"Can you talk?"

The boy makes a tiny sound like a snort, and dives back into the water. Scorpius thinks for a moment that he's offended him, that he's ruined everything already, but then he hears something. There's a sound coming from under the water, and it can only be the mermaid. There must be words, but he can't make them out, they're too blurred by the water. It's frustrating. Then there's something different, like music, and Scorpius realises that the mermaid is _singing_ to him. It's beautiful and haunting, and somehow he knows that the melody is going to stay with him for a long time. But then it ends, abruptly, and the boy's head breaks the surface again. He tilts his head to the side a little, and Scorpius recognises the question.

"I couldn't hear what you were saying. Sorry." He's too high up to be able to stick his head underwater without being at risk of toppling in. "Maybe we can find some other way to talk to each other, though." 

It's all very well to say something like that, but now he has to come up with a reasonable solution. "Can you write?" 

The boy shakes his head again, clearly frustrated, and Scorpius's heart swells with pity. This is annoying enough for him, and out of the two of them he's the one who is actually able to communicate. He can't imagine how the other boy feels. 

"I'm sorry," he says again. The mermaid flicks his tail up out of the water to make a splash, and Scorpius catches a tiny glimpse of deep green, like the colour of seaweed, and it's an interesting contrast to the boy's pale skin. It takes him a moment to realise what the motion means, and he feels another pang of pity. 

"I can't get in the water here," he explains, sheepish. "There's a current - well, I'm sure you know that already, of course, but my parents say it's too strong, and that I'm not to risk swimming out this far. They don't want me to get _swept away and drowned._" He quotes his father with a rueful smile. 

The boy flicks his tail again, then his eyes widen as he glances over Scorpius's shoulder, and he disappears into the water. Scorpius watches the ripples spread for a moment, then turns back to see what startled the mermaid so much and sees his mother is standing a few metres away.

"Come back inside, _słońce_," she says, smiling. "We brought lunch back from the market." 

Scorpius pulls his shoes and socks on over wet, sandy feet and they climb back up to the house. Lunch is warm fresh bread and soft cheese and salad that their neighbours brought over to welcome them back, and they eat around the old wooden table in the back garden. The sunshine is a wonderful change from their usual gloomy dining room. His parents tell him about what's changed in town since they've been gone - there are more tourists now, like there are every year, and his favourite waffle stall is still there, and a new magical bookshop has opened up nearby. It's so wonderful to be home again that Scorpius almost forget to ask the question that's been burning in his mind. He waits until they're clearing the table and his father is directing a stack of dishes back into the kitchen through the open window. 

"Why can't I swim out past the end of the pier, dad?"

Draco's face is immediately stern, and Scorpius starts to think that maybe he should have asked his mother instead. 

"You already know this, Scorpius, we must've told you a hundred times already. The currents are too strong, you'd be swept away and drowned and your body would wash up on the public beach in Sopot for all the tourists to see. Is that where you want to end up?"

"No," Scorpius says, voice small, but he's still determined. "But isn't there some kind of magic that could protect me from it?"

Draco lowers his wand abruptly and there's a _crash_ as the dishes land in the sink. "No," he says, firm, and it's a clear end to Scorpius's line of questioning. "And you're not to try anything, understand?"

He stalks inside, then, leaving Scorpius standing in the grass. It makes sense that his parents are protective of him, because he's their only child, but sometimes he wishes that his father didn't baby him so much. He's seventeen now, after all, and he's allowed to use magic, so what's stopping him from trying? His father hates the sea for some unfathomable reason, and never comes down to the beach, so he should be safe down there. He just needs to find the right spell. 

They have a small collection of books in the house; his mother works with a charity committed to the protection of endangered magical species, and Scorpius gained his love of reading from her, so he knows there will be something he can use to learn more about saltwater mermaids, at least. Astoria is in the study when he comes in, papers covered in hand-drawn diagrams strewn everywhere and an open pot of ink balanced precariously close to the edge of the desk. 

"I didn't mean to interrupt," he says, because she's clearly working, but this is important. "I was looking for a book."

"What kind of book? Did you finish your Muggle story already?" Astoria asks, and pushes her chair away from the desk to stand up. She's looking at him curiously, and Scorpius feels strangely like he's under a microscope. She can always read him, sometimes a little too well.

"I wanted something on mermaids," he says, tentative. He doesn't want to explain _why_ just yet, because the boy in the water feels like something he should keep a secret, at least for now. 

Astoria moves over to a shelf on the far side of the room, and leans down to run a finger across several spines. "Is this for homework? Do you mean merpeople?" she asks, pulling a couple of heavy books out. 

"No, mermaids," Scorpius says. "Like saltwater mermaids." He knows he's being too obvious now, and sends up a silent prayer that she won't ask further. But Astoria just regards him with that knowing look she saves only for him and his father, only for family, and hands him a stack of books. 

"Start with these," she says, "and just ask if you need anything else."

"Thanks, mum." Scorpius smiles, and he could swear that he sees his mother wink as he turns to leave, but there's no way she could know what he knows. _Is there?_

He spends the afternoon skimming the contents of all four books, and chooses the two that he thinks will be the most useful; one that seems to be an introduction to the species, and another which explores the differences between mermaid clans across the world. Taking a book on mermaids out to the pier the next day seems overly analytical, though, and if the boy shows up again Scorpius doesn't want to seem like he's _studying_ him. So he steals into the study again in the evening after dinner, when his parents are out in the garden with a bottle of Firewhiskey between them, to check out his father's side of the bookshelves. He knows that Draco has always been interested in the development of new spells, and he's even showed Scorpius a few that he's been working on himself, and his shelves are packed with spellbooks and old journals he picks up from the second-hand wizarding bookshops in town. There's no time to read through every title - what with his questioning about the currents earlier, Scorpius knows that his father would guess what he was looking for immediately if he was caught in here, so he has to be quick. He picks out _The Experienced Wizard's Guide To Water Magic_, as well as an untitled tome with an illustration of the seashore on the cover, and sticks them under his shirt to sneak out. 

His parents are still out in the back garden once he's stashed the borrowed books in his room, and it's getting late, so he goes out to say goodnight, before lighting his wand so that he can start reading under the covers. The untitled book turns out to simply be a handwritten memoir of a witch who lived by the ocean, presumably several hundred years ago, with a couple of potion recipes stuck in between the pages, but _Water Magic_ is much more promising. He starts on the introduction and intends to move on to the _Ocean_ section next, but falls asleep, face down between the pages, before he gets very far. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _słońce_ is a Polish word that means _sunshine_, and it's my favourite term of endearment so i had to fit it in here somehow <3 
> 
> come talk to me about scorbus/cursed child on tumblr (albypotter) or twitter (@wesninska)!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy crap i am sorry! this took forever to write! and i don't know why! but here it is!

It takes a while for the mermaid to show up again. There's not much to do nearby, other than all the same tourist attractions that he knows inside out by now, so Scorpius spends every day that week out by the sea, reading. He has homework to do for the start of seventh year, but the sun and the sea don't particularly motivate him to work on Transfiguration essays. He's finished his Muggle novel, so he can direct his focus towards trying to find the spell he's sure must exist that will let him communicate with the mermaid. _The Experienced Wizard's Guide To Water Magic_ was interesting, but there was nothing especially helpful in there, so he's moved on. It's a sunny day (though it's always a sunny day, here) so when a few drops of water land on his book and in his hair, it's bizarre. He looks up, expecting rain clouds, but the skies are clear. Then a familiar face appears out of the water. 

"Hello again," Scorpius smiles, and the boy cocks his head to the side a little and maybe smiles a bit too. His teeth are pointed, Scorpius notices.

"I missed you, before," Scorpius says before he can second-guess himself. It's true, after all. "I've been out here all week waiting for you to show up again."

The boy just watches him. It's disconcerting, somewhat, but it makes sense. There's only so much he can convey through facial expressions and gestures, and the rest is up to Scorpius.

"I've been reading," he starts, and he's suddenly nervous though he knows he has no reason to be. This is a stranger, and he never has to see him again if he doesn't want to. "I'm trying to find something that will let me come down there." He nods to the water under the wooden slats of the pier. The mermaid flicks his tail up out of the water again, the same as before, and Scorpius feels a wave of guilt wash over him.

"I can't, not yet, I'm sorry. Believe me, there's nothing I want more than to be in the water right now. But I'm working on it, see?" He holds up his book so the boy can see the cover. Scorpius isn't sure whether he can read, but the cover illustration should give him some idea, at least. "_How To Harness The Ocean_. Apparently it's quite an important text for water witches. I borrowed it from my dad." 

The mermaid doesn't seem especially interested in the book, but he perks up a little at the mention of Scorpius's dad. 

"My dad? He works for the Ministry of Magic, back in England. That's where we live, for most of the year. Dad loves stuff like this, I've been borrowing books from his library back at the house." He turns to look back at the cliffs, but the long swaying grasses hide it from view. He points instead. "It's up there, over the ridge of the cliff. It's my favourite place in the whole world. Well, apart from the sea." And he feels shy again. It seems like a presumptuous thing to say to someone who's spent their whole life in the sea. There's no way he could know this huge bright expanse as well as a mermaid, but there's a kernel of hope in his heart anyway. Because, of everywhere he's been, this sea really does feel like home.

Scorpius looks up from the waves to see the mermaid watching him intently, and there's a dangerous sparkle in his dark eyes, then something wraps around his ankle and _tugs_. Not hard, not enough for him to be in any danger of falling in, but it still sends a red spark of panic up his spine. The mermaid is still watching him, expression sweet and clear, but his hands have gone below the water. Scorpius bites his lip and waits to speak until he's sure his voice won't shake. 

"_I'm trying_, can't you see? It's not so easy for me. All I want is to be free like you are."

The mermaid slips back underwater, silent, and a moment later there's a flash of silvery green and Scorpius is drenched in salty water from head to toe. His book is soaked through, too, and the mermaid is gone. Scorpius just sits there, dripping wet, stunned. Obviously, that was the wrong thing to say. _But why?_

He dries himself off with a flick of his wand, and sits swishing his feet in the water for a while longer. He hopes the mermaid might come back, though he knows in his heart that it's unlikely. He's messed up, somehow, like he always does, and ruined another tentative friendship. But now that the thought of swimming out, far into the sea has taken root in his mind, he just can't shake it. Even if there's no mermaid out there to meet, to sing to him with that haunting voice he's been besotted by since he heard it that first day, he still wants to be out there, free. He's more determined than ever, now, to find this spell.

Astoria is working again when he pushes the study door open, and she looks exhausted. His mother loves her work, he knows she does, but Scorpius also knows that it all gets to be a little too much for her sometimes. He dreads the day he has to live like this, to be working constantly, the whole year round, never getting a break. He's brought her a cold drink, with her favourite raspberry syrup that they can never seem to find anywhere in England, and her eyes crinkle into a smile when she sees him. 

"_Cześć, słońce_," she says, putting her quill back into the inkwell. "What are you looking for this time?"

"More of the same," he says, setting the glass down on a coaster, careful not to spill it over any of the papers that litter the desk. The ice cubes clink against each other in a fragile echo. He's been back a few times in the last week, and she's always been working, but she always has time for him. 

"Already?" 

How can he tell her that he's been awake, reading by wandlight for hours and hours every night, long after the rest of the world has gone to sleep? How can he explain this desperation he has for something more than this life has to offer, for something deeper, for something meaningful and haunting and beautiful? For mermaid song?

"I read fast," he says instead, expression carefully blank, because there's no space in this room for what will spill out of him otherwise. He moves over to the bookshelves, and his mother pushes her chair out and stands to join him. He feels her eyes on his back as he runs a finger slowly over the spines of the books in front of him. 

"What are you _really_ looking for, Scorpius?"

He smiles away from her. His mother has always known him, known what he's thinking. Sometimes he thinks that she knows his mind better than he does. He has to be careful. It's not lying, exactly, if he doesn't tell the whole truth. The mermaid is his secret, for now. 

"New magic," he tells her, because that's true, at least. "Something like... physical magic. I'm sure the spell must exist, I just haven't found it yet." It's a dangerous level of detail, but he's desperate. 

Astoria smiles like she's read his mind. Maybe she has; Scorpius wouldn't be surprised if his mother had been hiding a talent for Legilimency from him for the last seventeen years. Or maybe she just knows him too well. 

"Here," she says, reaching up for a book from the very top shelf. Dust particles drift off the cover, and Scorpius watches them spiral down to the ground, lit like glowing sparks in the late afternoon light. "I think you'll find what you're looking for in this one. Just be careful." 

His mother’s quiet certainty is telling; she must know, or have some idea at least, of what he’s hoping to do. Scorpius hugs the book to his chest, not daring to look at it yet in case it disappears somehow, and wonders how she manages it. How his mother can predict all his strange wild ideas, sometimes before he's even thought of them himself. Sometimes it seems as though she could find out the secrets of the whole universe, if she wanted to. She’s watching him curiously, with a little knowing smile.

“Thank you,” Scorpius manages, pushing away the millions of questions that swirl through his brain. This is a gift, and he won't risk sabotaging himself. "I will, I promise." He doesn't know what he'll find when he opens the book, whether that's a promise he can realistically keep, but he figures he'll cross that bridge when he comes to it. 

_The Curious Witch's Handbook_ turns out to be so old and worn that the binding almost falls away when he opens it, lying on his front in the long grass of the back garden. He would have taken it to the beach, but his mother probably wouldn't appreciate him getting sand stuck between the pages. _Astoria Greengrass_ is printed in faded purple ink on the inside cover, in a neat, blocky script he recognises from the notes she hides in his trunk before he leaves for school each term. He can tell that the book must be very old, and not just from the dust and the curling, yellowed pages; the prose is long-winded and confusing and he finds himself rereading paragraphs over and over trying to catch the meaning. It's almost like reading a foreign language that he only half understands. He's so focused on the words that he doesn't notice that it's getting dark until he hears his name being called. His father. Scorpius tries covering the pages with his hands, but Draco doesn't seem to notice, just calls him inside for dinner. 

Scorpius tries the book again in the evening, hidden away in his room. He's exhausted already, though he hasn't really done anything today, and the sentences blur together on the page into smudges of faded ink. But he keeps going anyway. His parents come in to say goodnight, then leave, and he's still reading and rubbing his eyes and rereading until he can make sense of the ancient words. It's past 4am now, and he knows he won't get anything done like this, that he should just go to sleep and carry on in the morning, but each new spell he reads about is more fascinating than the last. Some of them are almost dark magic - he could curse his enemies to be hit by a stroke of bad luck every single Saturday, if he wanted - but most of the spells are just _strange_. Charms for oddly specific things, that must have been created by someone both lazy and extremely talented. Scorpius learns how to charm his socks to wash and dry themselves, how to make a quill refill itself with ink, and then... 

He turns a page and there's a note in purple ink in the margin, though there hasn't been anything else written in the rest of the book. The note is just a single word: _Ewelina_, an old Polish name. It doesn't mean anything to him, but the spell it's written next to grabs his attention immediately. _Tethering Charm_, the title reads. The description is just as confusing as all the others he's read through, but the understanding comes easier this time. It's a spell to attach the user to an object or location, with a silver cord that can't be broken by anything but magic. The book says that it was originally developed by a witch who was mending the roof of her house and didn't want to risk falling, but Scorpius reasons that it should work underwater too. And if he combines it with a Bubble Charm so that he can breathe...

His exhaustion has melted away into exhilaration, because now the thing he's been looking for is within his reach and all he has to do is master one new spell. He learned the Bubble Charm in his fifth year, as extra preparation for his O.W.L.s, and he's pretty sure he remembers the incantation for it. So this one new spell shouldn't be too difficult to learn. 

He wants to start practising it straight away, but there's a hint of burnt orange sunlight filtering through the blinds as he glances towards the window. _Tomorrow_, he thinks, as he marks the page and sets the precious book aside. _Tomorrow, I'll be so much closer to freedom._

* * *

The Tethering Charm turns out to be much more complicated than Scorpius had realised. In his sleepless haze, he had neglected to read the section on wand movement - and it's a long-winded explanation almost a paragraph long by itself, including the word _widdershins_, which he has to ask his father about. It's a strange circular motion with some other pointing and stabbing afterwards, and it takes him almost two days to get the movement as close as he can to what the book describes. He doesn't dare try the actual spell in the vicinity of the house, where Draco could catch him at any time, so he takes the book down to the beach with him. He practices it on the sand a few times first, attaching himself first to a large rock and then to a stray wooden post that sticks firmly up out of the sand, before he's ready to try it in the sea. His heart is beating so loud as he sits on the creaking wooden boards at the end of the pier that he thinks the tourists on the beach in the next town over can probably hear it. He's practised the Bubble Charm already, in the bath back at the house, so he's not worried about being able to breathe. No, he's just worried about getting swept away by the current, never to be seen again. 

When he casts the spell, the silver cord that wraps itself around him gleams in the late afternoon sun. He tests it by walking towards the beach, and when he tugs on the cord it pulls him straight back to the end of the pier where he started. _It works perfectly_, Scorpius tells himself as he casts his Bubble Charm, _and it can only be broken by magic, so there's absolutely nothing that could go wrong_. But he’s still undeniably nervous as he sits on the wooden planks and dips his feet in the water. He leaves his shirt in a crumpled pile beside him, wand laid carefully on top, and plunges into the sea. 

It's _freezing_. Scorpius wasn't expecting the water to be cold at all, since it was so warm on the beach, so it's an icy shock straight to his bones. There's panic wrapping around his mind like a thick fog, and he has to fight to keep it away. He's sinking, somehow, though he knows he shouldn't be, and the current is so much stronger than he expected it would be. The further he sinks, the further he's dragged away from the safety of the beach, the more he feels like he can't breathe. His lungs are being crushed under the pressure of the water above him. He can still see the faint silver of his bubble of air around his head, but the light is fading into menacing greens and blues and his eyes don't have time to adjust. This sea is nothing like what he expected; not the freedom he wanted, not the elation he was hoping for, just the fading light of the surface in the distance and a current pulling him away from home. He wants to go back. 

He reaches blindly for the silver cord that will pull him to safety. It must be behind him, above him, it must be _somewhere_ \- but all he can find is a wisp of light that disintegrates into the swirling waters as soon as his flailing hand passes through it. It's gone. Somehow, his safety net is gone, and he's going to drown, _he's going to drown in this dark awful sea, he's here all alone and he's going to die - _

And then there's something wrapping around his arm and _pulling_, and it's new and confusing but the panic dissipates just a little. He thinks for a moment that it's his mother, though he knows it can't be, not all the way down here. He's still being dragged through the water, he still can barely see through the murkiness of it, but there are flashes of silver and deep green scales and he knows instinctively that it must be the mermaid from before. He can't seem to stop his limbs from moving, thrashing wildly through the water as though he has any idea which way is up, which way he should be swimming, but the mermaid still doesn't let go of him. He seems utterly unbothered by the whole situation, and it's jarring. 

When his head breaks the surface and the bubble around his head dissipates, Scorpius thinks that the air is sweeter than anything he's ever tasted, despite the salty water on his lips. He looks around desperately for his saviour, but the mermaid is nowhere in sight. He's close enough to the beach to swim back, and he longs for the feeling of ground under his feet and sand between his toes, but he wants to find the mermaid to thank him first. Scorpius risks dipping his head underwater for a moment, just to look for him, but there's nothing. Nothing but a distant, familiar melody, and a few words that he has to strain to hear. _My name is Albus. I'll be back for you._

There's a shout from the shore, then, and his father is there. Draco, who _never_ comes down to the beach. There's a different tone of fear in his chest as he swims slowly back to the beach. It's hard, he's utterly exhausted from trying to resist the current and the panic that overwhelmed him, and his throat is raw. He must have been screaming, though he doesn't remember it through the haze of dark water. His knees buckle under him as he tries to stand in the surf, and he can't stop himself from falling. His father is calling to him, but Scorpius is gone again, passing out into the sand and the sea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more polish words because i'm obsessed with polish astoria! _cześć_ means hi/hello and it definitely doesn't sound like how it looks  
come yell about scorbus with me on tumblr @albypotter or twitter @wesninska!


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